4/2 UPDATE:
Due to an unfortunate lack of vision control, Teemo took advantage of new and fragile couples across the state. A tragic reminder of the importance of map awareness, we’ve decided to discontinue our League of Lovers offerings. We have, however, decided to convert the service into an Oklahoma League of Legends roster so local players can find teammates. Please; ward responsibly.

Being a game master (GM) for a tabletop role playing game can be exciting. You’re part director, part storyteller, part thespian, part moderator and all powerful. Today more and more people are playing not only Dungeons & Dragons but also Shadowrun, Call of Cthulu, Vampire: The Masquerade, Star Wars, Pathfinder, Deadlands and many more.

If you’ve played any of these games, you may be considering becoming a GM but don’t know where to start. Or perhaps you’ve tried your hand at running a game but struggled with flexibility and managing your story. Seasoned GMs from one of Oklahoma City’s most popular game spots, Game HQ, gathered Saturday, March 11 at the store to share their tips and tricks for running a great game.

A crowd gathered Saturday, March 11 at Game HQ to learn tips for running tabletop RPGs.

These are the top 10 tips from that class:

1. Start off on the right foot.

“Before you start play, take a moment to create focus,” GM Ashley King said. “You need to bring your players away from their real life problems and into the world of the game.” King suggests taking a moment to introduce yourself as the GM, introduce the adventure by reading the title and summary and establish any rules about breaks, phones, etc. From there, she then asks for everyone’s character backgrounds, inventory, names and confirming the correct pronunciation. “For some people (name pronunciation) matters a lot and will help with their immersion,” she said. [Read more…]

Well, it’s been a week since Bethesda Softworks released their remastered version of one of their best selling games, Skyrim. It’s honestly a bit hard to believe that most of us took our first steps into the frozen north of Tamriel a mere five years ago and I must say that it is nice to be back.

Having watched numerous videos on YouTube about how Skyrim Special Edition was a less than spectacular thing, I was a bit hestitant, regardless of getting the game for free on PC. Still, I decided to take all of the points made and keep them in the back of my mind so I could make my own opinion about the game while still taking into account what the reviewers had to say. While I won’t say I completely agree with them, I don’t disagree either.

As a primary PC player, I have had the gift of mods for games like Skyrim and Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4 since they came out. However, being a gamer on a strict budget, I never had the type of PC that could run the best Graphical mods and ENBs that were out there so, at best, I got a slightly tricked out version of the original game. Now, consoles, on the other hand, are another story. If you were one of the thousands of people who only played Skyrim on console, welcome to my house.

All this being said, my current install of Skyrim Special Edition is VERY basic. I’m now able to play in 1080p HD with average fps of about 20 (for all you out there who are less than knowledgeable about PC stuff, that’s really good.). The only mods I have installed are one that adjusts the lighting of the game to make Skyrim darker and a couple of Survival based ones (Frostfall and Campfire).

Here’s the scoop on this. If you had an above average PC and were able to play Skyrim with max settings and all that cool stuff, you are likely to be underwhelmed by this release. The biggest thing it does is it is now a 64 bit engine,whereas it’s predecessor was only a 32 bit. This means the game is now able to take full advantage of your processor and memory on your PC. It also takes full advantage of the power provided by the Xbox One and PS4 making for buttery smooth frame rates and a view distance so good that you can almost see the trees swaying on a mountain side that is miles from you. It is truly a much more immersive experience than before. Here’s a few examples:

HEY! I saw Blythe steal that guard’s Sweetroll then shoot him in the knee with a bow and arrow from here!

A Vanilla Waterfall… It’s okay to cry from it’s overwhelming magesticness… I did.

The biggest thing with Skyrim Special Edition, however, was the controversy around Bethesda’s decision to give the game to owners of the PC version for free, so long as they owned all the DLC. Meanwhile, Console players had to pay the entire $60. Honestly, I can see why Bethesda did this. PC players have had a Skyrim like this for years so it wasn’t that big of a thing for us. Honestly, the only thing we get out of this is the 64 bit engine. On the other side, though, console players FINALLY get to play with mods! This makes for so many replay-ability options and even additional DLC sized Mods like Falskaar and Moonpath to Elswyr that make this 5 year old game feel new.

As far as Gameplay is concerned, nothing has changed from the original game. This “remastering” is entirely graphical. Simple things like increasing the Viewing Distance or making the water flow in a natural manner, rather than in a static direction that seems to just vanish when it hits the coastline. Honestly, my biggest complaints are very few. The fact that Bethesda did nothing to improve the textures of the people in this world keeps them looking like their 5 year old counterpart and, since the game was ported over using the engine that made Fallout 4, I wanted a better Character Creation tool. I would almost go as far as to say that Bethesda left these things in on purpose to give the modding community something to do. Still, it would have been nice to have these out of the gate.

The bottom line is that Skyrim Special Edition is still a wonderful game and, in my opinion corrects a lot of the things that made the original game feel less Immersive. It’s a beautiful world when rendered at 2k in High Definition and well worth the $60. And now that Consoles get to play with Mods makes it even more worth it! If you were a fan of the original on console or loved Fallout 4, certainly give this a go. While I don’t own a next gen console I can certainly tell you I would buy this game if I did. (For the record, I may or may not own Borderlands 2 on PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3…) Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go turn into a Werewolf and kill me some Vampires. FUS ROH DAH!

Facebook Events are a great way to engage with your audience and keep them informed about any upcoming events your organization may be hosting. You are able to include a time, date and place for your event and, if your page is public, your event will show up for the audience in your area when they click “Events” on Facebook.

But, what if your organization wasn’t the one that created the event?There’s now an easy way to add any public event to your page!

Go to the created event’s main page. You should see the title of the event, the date of the event and options to mark your attendance and invite others at the top of the event page.

Click the three dots (…) to the right of the Invite button.

Click “Add to Page.”

You should see a dropdown menu to “Select a Page.”

And that’s it! This is particularly important for venues – when an organization creates an event, they are the “host” of the event on Facebook, and the venue’s page doesn’t display the event. Now, you can add the event to your organization’s page to maximize exposure.